Blue Ridge Country - September/October 2015 - 54

kenberry settled on the name of
Frankenberry's adored dog, Jo-Jo.
"A few years ago, I got a phone
call and the person asked me if we
still make them," Karos says. "He
then told me he wanted 75. And not
until the next year! They were for a
class reunion. He called me closer
to the time, and all his high school
classmates had Jo-Jos."
Patterson's Drug Store
134 South Queen Street,
Martinsburg, West Virginia
304-267-8903;
pattersonsdrugstores.com

Florence on Queen
Francesco Visone, a native of Florence, Italy, believes that the best
food is peasant food. And the menu
at Martinsburg's Casa Visone Italian Bistro is testament to that belief.
The first item on that menu is pasta
fagioli, with cannellini beans in a
basil-flavored tomato sauce.
Francesco and his wife Eva are
a welcoming presence on Queen
Street and claim all their customers as part of their "Italian family."
Covering a wall of the restaurant
are photographs from both sides of
their family. Among them is a shot
of Amelia Visone, Francesco's mother, who never visited the United
States but whose presence is strongly felt in her son's restaurant.
Amelia's lasagna isn't on the
menu all the time, but when it's featured as a special on the Casa Visone
web page, Eva says customers call
ahead to reserve a plateful.
Like George Karos, Francesco Visone has been in the same business
all his life. His first job was delivering fruits and vegetables for a Florentine produce shop when he was
six, earning 10 cents a day for the
family income. He went on to work
in some of Florence's most famous
restaurants and continued his career
in Washington, D.C., after arriving
in America in 1976.
The Casa Visone menu is filled
with classic Italian favorites like
veal piccata and veal saltimbocca. A
popular appetizer is fresh asparagus
with prosciutto and cream sauce.
54 BlueRidgeCountry.com

As Francesco likes to say: "The
recipe book was written 2,000 years
ago by the Etruscans. I simply follow their wisdom."
Casa Visone Italian Bistro
120 North Queen Street,
Martinsburg, West Virginia
304-260-9294; casavisone.com

An Asian Pioneer
Peking was the first Chinese restaurant to open in the Martinsburg
area. It remains a downtown fixture.
The menu is classic Chinese: sesame chicken, Peking steak, Mongolian beef, and a staff recommendation, the Triple Delight, with beef,
chicken, shrimp, and vegetables.
A collection of "Exotic Polynesian Drinks" includes the rum-laced
Flaming Volcano and a Piña Colada
served in a plastic coconut.
Mike Chan, the original owner,
still comes by every day to shake
hands, says his niece, server Pien
Tung. "He knows everybody."
The current owner, Erwin Wong,
says the restaurant serves authentic
Chinese food despite the Germanic
sound of his first name.
Peking Chinese Restaurant
139 South Queen Street,
Martinsburg, West Virginia
304-263-6544

Articulate Chocolatiers
Inside Martinsburg's 1935 McCrory's Five and Dime building
is a candy wonderland. DeFluri's
Fine Chocolates is owned by Charlie and Brenda Casabona. He has a
master's degree in radio and television criticism from Ohio University. She is a master's degree
graduate in econometrics from
American University in Washington, D.C.
It was the chemistry of chocolate that first interested this trufflemaking economist. "I love how the
ingredients interact and react in
certain ways," says Brenda. "What
really spurred me into experimenting-I used to make fudge as a kid.
Sometimes it worked; sometimes it
didn't. That got me interested in
reading about cooking tempera-

http://www.casavisone.com http://www.pattersonsdrugstores.com http://www.BlueRidgeCountry.com

Blue Ridge Country - September/October 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Blue Ridge Country - September/October 2015